We Who Have Died With Christ

I have a short message for us this morning.

Turn over to Romans 6 with me.

Romans 6 clears up a lot of questions in our world, if people would listen.

Paul begins with the question...

What shall we say then?

He’s asking this because what was just introduced in Chapter 5 was the concept that though it was through one man’s disobedience (speaking of Adam) many were made sinners, it is through one man’s obedience (that is, Jesus Christ) the many will be made righteous.

It’s not, many are righteous by obeying.

Or you can be righteous if you do good to others and stay out of extreme trouble.

No…Scripture teaches that The problem is within. We are sinners, and it is Christ’s obedience alone that is sufficient to please God.

A few thousand years ago, before God introduced the 10 commandments through Moses, there was still sin in the world, but then the law came in and increased the trespass.

It’s one thing to do wrong. It’s another thing to transgress a law. To trespass a boundary that a holy God lays down and says, out of love, this is wrong. This is against me.

The world surely rejects this estimation of the human condition, but it doesn’t take long to realize that the world is helping nobody.

So, if you’re looking to find relief from something in the world, today needs to be the end of that journey. A new beginning is around the corner for those who repent and believe God’s Word this morning.

This reality of human depravity is soon met by an abundance of grace, so that Paul says these famous words in v20 of chapter 5...but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

THANK YOU GOD, FOR THE GOSPEL.

Grace reigns through righteousness.

Sin brought death, and where there is death there is sin.

Death was caused by sin, and more sinning comes as a result of hearts that are dead to God. This is the cycle of the lost sinner.

On the flip side of this

Grace reigns through righteousness.

If the power of sin is evidenced through death, then the power of grace is evidenced in the righteousness that leads to eternal life.

THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD!

Because that is truly what it means for something to reign, for that reigning ruler to have nothing less than lordship?

Who is reigning in your life. If it is Jesus, then His is Lord, and there is no other, and His righteousness has given you life.

And because of all of this, we actually have something to say when we face a world of sin and desire.

Chapter 6 v1. What shall we say then… to this question. Should we continue in sin just because grace is able to overcome sin by it’s power?

No.

This verse has been misunderstood by many, and through hardness of heart people have lived compromised and disobedient lives, thinking they are under grace, failing to remember that sin is evidence of death not more grace. And what is sin? It’s not just murder, adultery, and drunkenness…those are indeed sins, but they are also symptoms of the deeper issue of unbelief, and not loving God with all your heart.

And so, for this question of are we to continue in sin, we have only one answer to give, and it is, By No Means! Perish the thought of it! Remove it from your mind!

And he gives us a foothold for this in the very next verse...

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

That’s a REAL category of people in this room.

There are the “We who have died to sin” people.

And there’s something about them. They are full of joy, and life, and victory, and happiness, and repentance, and surrender, and eternal life.

Death doesn’t reign. Grace reigns through righteousness.

Notice what Paul does next...

Do you not know?

That’s such a good question...

We need more people in this world willing to ask this rhetorical question.

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

He reminds these Christians of their baptism into Christ.

Now we know he’s talking about water baptism, for at least 2 reasons...

Jesus was baptised into water, fully immersed by John the Baptist.

Scripture said he came up out of the water...

2. In Matthew 28 When Jesus gave the commission to the disciples, he said “Go and make disciples, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

That word in the Greek, baptidzo, means this:

to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk)

to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one's self, to bathe

to overwhelm

Here’s what Paul must be saying...

When you were baptized, you took on the name, the identity, the fullness of Jesus Christ in all His redemptive intention for your life…you were fully immersed, enveloped, and overwhelmed in His death, burial, and resurrection.

Dear people, this is either you today, or you one day soon, or it will never be you…But one thing is clear from the text of Scripture, without Christ there is no grace and without HIS grace there is only death and sin and sin that leads to death, and the reign of everlasting sorrow in this life and on into eternal judgement.

The dying Savior invites us to die His death so that we might have his eternal life.

How is this? Through faith.

That simple mechanism…faith. Trust. Belief in the Son of God.

Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

So that again? It is through Jesus Christ, the Lord!

At the risk of sounding grim, let me just say, the way to life is death.

EVERYTHING good and truly meaningful comes on the other side of death and sacrifice.

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Gal 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Baptism is this picture of death and life. Those who are being baptised today…this is what you’re saying to the world…Your life is hidden with Christ in God. It is no longer you, but Christ who works in you.

You have died with Christ through faith, and now, because He lives…you live.

Anyone else who is with us today, and you are desperately tired of life and its misery, you’re missing what true life is because you do now follow Christ as Lord, and you walk about this world in spiritual death, rejecting the grace of God that leads to righteousness and life.

And who is qualified to come to Jesus?